Nova Scotia looks to establish reserve team to help fight wildfires

Wildfires in Shelburne County and Halifax Regional Municipality were still raging as Nova Scotia Natural Resources Minister Tory Rushton and other officials started considering a new way to use volunteer firefighters.

As demands on local departments and members of the provincial wildfire service intensified, Rushton's department, through the Fire Service Association of Nova Scotia, released an application form for volunteer firefighters interested in screening to become part of a type of reserve service for fighting wildfires.

"It's water that we've never treaded before with the volunteer sector," Rushton said in an interview.

"They're always willing to step up to help. This may be a new avenue and something that we can look for for the years to come."

The response was emphatic: 300 people applied to go through a fitness screening.

How the reserve system will look remains to be determined.

Rushton and Greg Jones, chief of the Amherst Fire Department and president of the Fire Service Association of Nova Scotia, said officials are still trying to decide how many people will be selected, whether there would be an annual call for training and screening, and how people selected would be used.

The province has about 300 professional wildland firefighters on staff. Rushton said a reserve system would be intended to add additional support and build on the skills and training many volunteer firefighters already have. 

Jones and Rushton both said they'd like to see people spread across the province so they can help when called upon in their local area, provide coverage for when a large number of provincial wildland firefighters are dispatched to a call, and ease the burden on volunteer fire departments that are often the first to respond to wildfire calls.

A way to help volunteer departments

Because people selected would be paid by the department for their time when called upon, Jones said the approach would also be a way to help ease the strain volunteer fire departments face when members are called to a fire that lasts for an extended time.

"Once we're beyond the two or three days, the volunteer firefighters — in most cases — have to get back to their regular work life and family," he said.

"So one thing this reserve will do is if we're getting into the four and five days post-start of the event, this will give the province the ability to have a group of individuals they can call on quickly to increase their wildland protection workforce."

The province already has a funding model that provides volunteer departments money based on the number of vehicles and people used during suppression work at wildfires. Rushton said those rates were increased this year by 15 per cent to reflect increases in costs.

Rushton, who was a volunteer firefighter for 21 years with the Oxford Fire Department, including 12 years as chief, said he wasn't surprised by the response to the idea of a reserve service. But he also knows that fighting a structure fire and a wildfire are two different things, and the province needs to ensure people are properly trained and the necessary protections for them are in place.

"I've often said I'd rather fight 10 house fires than one forest fire."

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